


Rightful

by Maker_of_Rune_Vests



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Fluff, Her Father Is Evil, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), King Loki of Jotunheim, Loki (Marvel) Feels, Loki is Alive, Pregnancy, Reader is an elf, Thor: Ragnarok (2017) Compliant, non-sexual abuse, set in 2019
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-15 23:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15424215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maker_of_Rune_Vests/pseuds/Maker_of_Rune_Vests
Summary: Since you presumably are a Loki fan, I thought you might like to know that there is a petition with almost 40,000 signatures "[t]o make sure Marvel Studios knows how popular Loki is and ensure that he comes back in the next film (spoilers for infinity war) that he is alive and back not only as a flashback, but returns fully alive": https://www.change.org/p/marvel-studios-loki-returning-in-avengers-4-alive





	1. In Which Your Husband Is Your Husband

“I cannot help marrying him,” you say softly. “My father insists on it, and he would not change his mind even if I told him I’m married to you, my Loki. Because you’ve been gone for eight years now, and seven months….” You swallow hard, and reach out to caress the cheek of the wooden bust you’d carved of your husband. All those nights hidden away here or there, his magic lighting the space while you studied every beautiful, asymmetrical line of his face; and then when you were done carving for the night his soft kisses on your tired, nicked hands and his arms around you and his ardent devotion. 

You blink away tears, and carefully hide the carving in the trunk at the foot of your bed, under iridescent gowns and golden crowns and the beautiful, unmelting ice roses that your suitor gave you. You pick those up, shivering a little, and tuck them into your hair. They summarize the two things you know about him: he’s the king of the Frost Giants, and a magician. 

And you must go meet him now. You carefully wipe away your tears--Elvish princesses do not cry in public--and walk out of your room and down the spiral stairs, made of golden wood that branches and blooms and has to be pruned. 

“You are almost late,” your father complains as you step onto the perfect moss of the floor. 

“I’m sorry, Father.”

Fifteen steps across the moss, a step through the arched doors, and you are in the Wedding Hall, and there is your betrothed, twenty steps away.

You take a deep breath and slowly looks up from the floor and at him. Trim black leather boots, over the knee and laced with knots of leather and sudden buckles; a long leather loincloth, tooled with circles and angles and dragons that are both; navy-nailed hands at his sides. You’ve seen his hands before, you can’t help thinking. The long, fine bones….

Your eyes lift to his face, and your hand drops off your father’s arm. You know every line. You’ve carved every detail. His skin is blue, his eyes red, his face older, his hair grown into black curls. He’s alive, instead of dead; Jotun, instead of Asgardian; a king instead of a prince. Your lips part in silent shock, bewilderment making your heart thump and your pulse leap in your throat and temples. 

He extends a hand to you with a slight, questioning smile, and for this moment you do not care that you are more confused than you have ever been. As quickly as one can with a flowing gown and royal dignity, you walk forward and put your hand in his, looking up at him with more bewilderment than you’ve ever felt, and more exaltation that bewilderment. His hand is cold, as cold as the day when the two of you had thrown snowballs at each other without gloves. You tighten your hand around his cold fingers, trying to believe that this in an unexplainable real day, rather than a dream, and his smile becomes fond.

Someone has been talking--ah. It’s your father, and he has already said a third of the marriage ceremony. A moment later Loki quietly vows to be faithful to you, in a voice that has accumulated tinges of accents from realms to which you have never been, and you repeat the promise to him. It’s a promise you’ve never broken and are glad to revow. 

“A marriage has been made!” your father intones, and then raises his head abruptly to look behind you, where you hear fast, heavy footsteps. You and Loki both turn, hands parting.

A woman taller than all the men in the room lopes toward Loki, expression grave. Hoarfrost spreads around her blue feet whenever they slam into the floor. “My lord. Your brother the Lord Helblindi has been kidnapped.” 

Loki nods, hands tensing. “I shall return immediately. Thank you.” He turns to your father and bends his head courteously. “My apologies--” he turns to you “--and my apologies to you. I shall return for you as soon as this crisis is remedied.” 

He and the Jotun woman begin to stride away before you have managed to say anything. No. Once was enough. Once was more than enough. You lift your skirt up to your ankles and catch up to him, ignoring your father’s scolding exclamation of your name and the sudden sting in your mind of his casting a silent spell at you. He uses such spells when angry, to give you headaches or keep you from sleeping or muddle you. 

“I’ll come with you now,” you say. Loki does not slow or stop--he is more hurried than you have ever seen him--but a smile flickers across his face and he takes your hand, and you hurry out of the hall with him.


	2. In Which the Weather and Your Brother-in-Law are Troubled

As you approach the doors that lead out of the palace, Loki pauses and quickly undoes the buckles of the broad leather straps that cross his chest and hold on his cape, billowing green cloth with a pale fur collar two feet wide. He turns toward you and your eyes fix on something that the straps had hidden, that most certainly was not there eight years ago: a murderously immense, ragged-edged scar, navy on his blue skin--the mark of a wound that must have killed him. But you know he died of falling into Ginnungagap….

 

You look up at him bewilderedly as he sets the cape on your shoulders, his cold hand brushing against your jaw as he adjusts the fur around your neck. He does not meet your eyes, but putting on the cape is so quick that you doubt he intends not to. “Stay as closely wrapped in it as you can,” he says, voice quiet, and turns to push open the double doors. 

Usually there would be rowan trees and a mossy path; today there is a ice-blowing chaos of white light and snowflakes. It’s that sort of day. And it’s the sort of day on which you catch hold of your husband’s hand and walk into the portal without qualms, clutching his cape around you. You can barely see the messenger, though she is only a few feet in front of you; and you haven’t the faintest idea how you’re walking on light and snow. 

 

Light. White. Flashing. Floating.

 

Darkness.

 

It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust. You are standing in a snowstorm, so dark that you wonder if it is night here in Jotunheim. It’s so cold that you start shaking when you’ve taken six steps. So much darkness and so many snowflakes. 

 

Something like a dark, symmetrical mountain with spots of blue fire on it looms before you, and then suddenly turns out to have doors that open as the three of you come near them.

 

You enter a large hall, lit blue by braziers full of light colder than you’ve ever seen. It’s as cold as in the storm outside; your eyes are watering so much that everything looks blurry.

 

Loki says your name, and you look up at him, blinking. “Your room is warm, and is through that door--” he motions to one--”and up the stairs. I shall come when I can.” 

 

You nod, and he releases your hand as two Jotnar men stride up to him, saying something about the Prince Helblindi having vanished and their reasons for suspecting kidnapping.

You are shaking from the cold so much that you fear slipping down the stairs, but you climb them, and open the first door you see. Warmth. You close the door behind you and sigh, relieved to have warm air all around you. You blink the water from your eyes and walk towards the fireplace, in which there are warm orange flames that are burning...nothing. They are giving off warmth, though, and you kneel in front of them and hold out your hands.

 

Water drips from your hair and from the fur collar of Loki’s cape as the snowflakes on them melt, wetting the green carpet on the floor. This room is certainly not like what you’ve seen of the rest of the palace; the walls are covered by golden hangings, the bed has what looks like half a dozen finely woven blankets on it, the large chest against the wall has golden cushions on it and is made of dark, carved wood like the frame of the bed.

 

And it’s weakly groaning. You stand up, heart pounding because that was very unexpected. A magic chest? Someone trapped in it? You take a deep breath and walk over to the chest, using both hands to lift the heavy lid.

 

A young Jotun man is curled up inside, eyes half-closed, breathing like someone who has been running on a hot day. For a moment you just stare at him, and then the realization that your room is too warm for a Jotun and the realization that this man looks like Loki both dawn in your mind. 

You shove the trunk lid all the way up, so it catches and will stay open, and run out of the room and down the stairs and back into the blue-lit hall. “Loki?” You look around for him; he’s nowhere in sight, so you hurry to the nearest person, a woman walking towards the doors to outside. “I’ve found the king’s brother.”

 

“Alive?” she asks anxiously.

 

“Yes, but not well, he’s in a warm room.”

 

“In yours?” You turn to see Loki, and nod.

 

“In my trunk, I don’t know why.”

 

His brows rise, and he runs up the stairs. You follow him, and reach your room just as he is lifting Helblindi out of the trunk, easily despite Helblindi being a little taller than he is, and larger boned. You move out of the way as he carries him out of the room, and carefully sets him down on the floor. “Bring water,” Loki says, glancing up at the people who are beginning to come up the stairs. “And tell the search parties to return.” Four people leave. You stand quietly, out of the way and wrapped tightly in the cape. 

Helblindi groans again and his red eyes open. “I was hiding from Father,” he whispers. “Because he keeps telling me--telling me to kill you….”

 

Loki sighs. “Laufey is dead,” he says quietly, adding with a wry smile, “and of all the rooms in the palace, did you have to hide in the warm one?”

 

“I know he’s dead,” Helblindi says, and closes his eyes again, lines appearing between his brows. 

 

Someone holds out a horn of water to Loki. He thanks them and takes it. “Drink this,” he tells Helblindi. Helblindi sits up and drinks it, leaning back against the wall, and then holds the horn and nervously taps on it. Loki stands up. “Come, let’s try another spell,” he says, and Helblindi rises and walks down the hallway, not in a straight line. 

 

Loki turns to you. “Thank you,” he says, too quietly for Helblindi to hear. “He is troubled, to put it moderately.” He opens the door of your room for you, and warmth flows out. “I will come as soon as I have calmed him.”

 

You nod. “I hope you can cure him,” you say quietly as you walk into the warm air. 

 

Loki shakes his head. “This is the fifteenth spell I’ve tried.” He strides away, following Helblindi, and you close your door. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since you presumably are a Loki fan, I thought you might like to know that there is a petition with almost 40,000 signatures "[t]o make sure Marvel Studios knows how popular Loki is and ensure that he comes back in the next film (spoilers for infinity war) that he is alive and back not only as a flashback, but returns fully alive": https://www.change.org/p/marvel-studios-loki-returning-in-avengers-4-alive


	3. In Which Your Husband has a Higher Personal Mortality Rate than Average

After an hour, you are warm enough that you move away from the fireplace. After three, and a meal of rather cold food that is very much like what Loki has said Asgardians eat--imported?--, you are tired and overwhelmed enough that you lie down on your bed, trying to understand all of this. How and why is Loki a Jotun king with a Jotun brother? How is he alive, with a scar that does not fit with how he died? 

 

The door opens and you sit up, and smile as you see Loki. He’s alive and you’re with him. Everything is bizarre, but your two greatest wishes came true. “How is he?” you ask with genuine concern. 

 

“Better,” Loki says. He closes the door and walks toward you, blue hands turning white. “What are you wondering most?” As he asks it his skin becomes the same pale marble that it used to be. The scar on his chest is red now, looking even more deadly. 

 

You touch the bed beside you, resisting the urge to say “Everything,” and he sits down, looking at you with a brow raised in expectation. So much you want to know, need to know. You lift your hand and very softly touch the end of his scar. “Is this--is this from when you died?” You had been sure he had died, though not from a wound like this. It must have been excruciating.

 

“It’s from the second time,” Loki says casually.

 

Your eyes leap up to his face; it is calm, the left corner of his mouth quirked up, his eyes looking at your hand from under his dark lashes.  “You died twice?!” Your hand falls into your lap. 

 

“Three times, actually.” He sounds ludicrously matter-of-fact. 

 

Oh. “When people turned to dust,” you guess. You will never forget that, the dissolution of half the people, half your fiends, half your servants; and then, after the dust had been wept on and buried, people reforming here and there, everyone reforming, very confused. You think of that breaking happening to Loki and shiver  like you did before you knelt by the fire.

 

He shakes his head. “I escaped that by having been strangled a day in advance,” he says merrily.

 

“Strangled---” A lump rises in your throat at the very thought, and, too upset to worry about if it’s time to, you throw your arms around him and cling to him, looking up at him with puzzlement and distress. He stiffens for just an instant, surprised, and then his wry expression becomes apologetic and his arms wrap around you, as gentle and fitting as they always used to be. You bury your face against his shoulder, his long curls brushing across your forehead. “I’m bewildered,” you murmur. 

 

He sighs, the tips of his fingers tracing your shoulder blades. “The first time, I  was...captive.” You feel his muscles tense, enough to enter a fight, as he thinks of and says the word. “And after that, I could not give you a home; and I believed you would be more content a widow than a lonely wife of a slayer marked for death.”

 

You lift your head to look up at him. “I was not content,” you say softly, and for a moment you feel anger electrify in you. But his eyes are too sad and his mouth too awry for you to miss that he is sorry. “Are you--are you safe now?”

 

“I met the death for which I was marked, and I survived it.” His eyes fix on yours, and he searches for words. “Since the last time we met, I have annihilated one realm, vandalized another, and invaded a third. I have saved the people of the first, am saving the people of the second, and am at peace with the third.”

 

Silence. You look into his eyes, asking and green in his tired, pale face. He was spring, making you puns and illusions of flowers; now he is autumn, ruling winter.  

 

“I wish I could have been with you,” you say softly. “To see you save your people, and---” How do you say that you wish you could have softened the undescribed desolation that caused him to obliterate and attack?

 

Loki shakes his head, making long black curls fall and hide the right side of his face. “I could not bear for you to know all my story, let alone have been present,” he says quietly, and then abruptly grins. “Does my new azure tint suit you?”

 

You blink as you reach up to smooth his hair back. Hair in his face always annoyed him. “It’s mystifying but alluring,” you say, making your tone bantering because his is. “And I quite like your new total abstinence policy regarding shirts.” 

He laughs, lines appearing at the corners of his eyes. “It’s not tremendously mystifying: I’m adopted.”

 

“And were the crown prince of Jotunheim,” you deduce.

 

“Precisely,” he says, and is quiet, studying your face. You nestle a little closer to him, telling yourself that he’s truly alive and well; you are with him and can stay with him; he will protect you and care for you, and you can care for him, even if he hides from you the reasons he needs your care.

 

“You have not been content,” he says softly. “Have you been safe?”

 

Your eyes fall. No, not with your father sequestering you, not with two suitors you did not want, not with your father’s painful spells, not with seeing Loki falling away from you every night after the day you heard that he had died. Some days you screamed if you heard a sudden sound and cried when a rose lost a petal.

 

“Don’t leave me again.” You meant to say something reassuring, but that is what you hear yourself beseech him.

 

He draws in his breath as he always did when he was hurt or when he was anxious, and puts his finger under your chin to gently tip your head up. “This is my realm, and we will remain here together,” he promises. 

 

You trust him, and so you smile more joyfully than you have in years; and he returns your smile and bends his head to kiss you.  

  
  
  



	4. In Which There Are Temples

You awaken in a room that has become so dark and cold that you know the magical fire must have gone out, and hear the gasps of someone trying not to scream and in too much pain to speak.  You sit up sharply, concerned and confused--where’s Loki, he was holding you when you fell asleep--

 

Your mind awakens and connects what you remember with what you are hearing and unable to see, and you reach out toward the gasps to find Loki, your heart pounding in your throat and chest. “Loki? Are you--are you all right?”

 

Your hand finds his sharply shaking chest. “Lo--” 

 

So suddenly that you cannot even yelp, he sits up and hurls you back on the bed, his weight shoving his knee down on your leg, both your wrists somehow in one of his hands and slammed against the wall above your head, and then in the same instant green light so bright it blinds you in your eyes. You gasp, forgetting how to talk.

 

He says your name, quick and alarmed, and lets go of your wrists and frees your legs at the same moment. You blink and see him looking appalled, his tear-streaked face lit green and his hair wild. “I thought you were another, are you hurt?” he asks urgently. 

 

“No,” you say, which isn’t quite true. But you don’t have the heart to say yes. 

 

“I am sorry,” Loki says softly. He reaches out and scarcely touches your wrist, looking at it as if it were broken. “I shall sleep in my own chamber in future.”

 

You realize you are still collapsed back against the wall, and sit up, curling your legs under you. “I hope not,” you say with a smile. “It’s probably too cold for me.”

 

Loki does not smile. He looks away from you and presses two fingers against his temple, his other hand tensing into a half-fist that puts interrupting shadows in the green light.

 

You move closer to him, shivering a little. The room is cooling quickly, with the fire out, and becoming slightly less dark.. It must be early morning. “Do you have a headache, my love?”

 

“Not exactly.” His voice is emotionless, not fitting at all with the pain you heard in his dreaming gasps and that you see in his clenched jaw and fingers. What can you do, not knowing what is agonizing him, with his eyes turned from you and his voice so automatic?

 

His shoulder gives a tense twitch, and that, unexpected, breaks your overwhelmed moment of trance. You nestle close beside him, cheek against his upper arm, and run your fingertips down his back, from strong, tense shoulders down over scars younger than eight years old, and then up again, and rub in small circles. 

 

After a while his shoulders relax a little, and he puts his arm around your waist and presses his lips to your forehead. “You’re cold,” he says softly. 

 

“Not very,” you assure him, shivering. 

 

He looks up at the fireplace, as if it had done something annoying, and a tiny bright dot appears in the air in it and spikes out into flames. “There is a place you should see,” he says unexpectedly. “Shall we go now?”

 

You tilt your head up to kiss his cheek. “Why not?”

 

Half an hour later, you are in the stables, clad abundantly in furs that you did not notice last night due to them being in the trunk under your brother-in-law, staring at one of the most terrifying animals you have ever seen.

 

It is taller than Loki, a greyer blue than the shade he has returned to, a cold dragon with red eyes and fangs and a humped up back topping broad  arms like those of an extremely muscular man, with toes twice big as your hand and claws almost as large as the toes. It is a little smaller in back, build like a huge blue cat, with a tail like a lizard. Its cell has stone walls six feet thick, and a door that was locked by magic. 

 

Now the door is open, and the creature slowly steps out, moving like an extremely heavy lizard that wants to be a cat. Loki pats its rounded nose, making it wag its tail enough to chip stone of of the walls.

 

“Her name is Thor,” Loki informs you with a grin. He puts a slender blue hand on the creature’s back and vaults up astride it. Curls fall into his face, and he brushes them back. 

 

He taps the creature’s side and she kneels, very much like a being that was not actually meant to know how to do that. She’s only four feet high now, and Loki helps you climb onto her in front of him and puts an arm around your waist.

 

“And go,” he tells her, and she lurches up and begins leaping through the air. Your stomach leaps, your hair flys, the cold air roars past you, you tip forwards and sideways. You cannot see the scenery; you cannot understand how Loki is not falling off. The only way you are staying on is because he has his arm around you and you have a death grip on his hand.

 

And then she does not lift off from a leap. She slides, slowing, through the snow, and stops in front of a vast ring of stone columns with a top that alternately dips as low as twice the height of an Elvish man and steps up to so high you know not what to compare it to. It looks the stone crown of a giant larger than any that exist.

 

Loki lifts you down and gracefully dismounts, telling the creature, “Stay.” 

 

She snorts, stomping a paw into the snow so hard that you hear ice crack under it.

 

“ _ Why _ is she named after your brother?” you ask, because it had to be asked. You put your gloved hand in his, and his blue fingers wrap around it protectively as he laughs.

 

He is looking at the stone circle, and there are lines between his brows. “Because he said I couldn’t tame one. So obviously, I tamed one and named it after him,” he says lightly. “And then it laid eggs. In the temple, coincidentally.” He nods toward the stone circle, and walks toward it. A gust of wind blows snow off the top as you near it, whiting your coat and making a heap at the base of the wall, which looks more and more gigantic the closer you are to it. 

 

The archway in, twice as tall as you would need it to be, is not smooth; it is more like the undersides of two sets of stone stairs met. Inside the great circle, there is nothing but snow and two charcoal things near the opposite side, one of which has a point of blue light on top of it. Loki walks toward them, too silently. You look up at him with concern; he does not look at you, but he lightly presses your hand. 

 

The blue light is streaming from inside a translucent, rectangular box on a stone stand, a box with curved-in corners and two handles on the small ends, made of something that looks like ice and like glass, edged with something that may be metal. At the foot of the stand is the second charcoal-colored object: a wide slice of stone without snow.

 

You shiver, pulling your fur hood farther over your face. The air is colder than any air that has ever whelmed you. “What are these?” you ask quietly.

 

Loki releases your hand and walks toward them.  “My birthrights,” he says, his voice, restrained through it is, a warmer sound than fits with all this icy cold. He gestures toward the stone slab, fingers spreading. “The altar on which I was sacrificed for Jotunheim’s victory, from which I was stolen for Asgard’s.” As he announces it a baby appears on the slab, crying as if its heart was broken, tiny blue arms reaching for nothing but snowflakes; and then a shadow falls on it, and you gasp as you look up to see a short but fierce man in armor splattered with blue blood, with an impossibly large, red-bloody scoop out of his face where his right eye should be. 

 

They dissipate into green light and into dark air, and Loki continues talking, as if he had not noticed them despite having conjured them. “And the the Casket of Ancient Winters, with which I half destroyed Jotunheim and with which I am wholly saving it.” He touches the two handles with his fingertips, looking down into the blue light which grows brighter and brighter until his red eyes look like they are purple. “I am the rightful king, the rightful heir; it would do nothing for this realm, did I not will it to.” His hands separate from the casket and he looks at you, mouth tilting into a wry, questioning smile. “The only reason I have not been assassinated yet.”

  
  


A flash of light flies toward Loki and before you can even open your mouth his hand stabs up through the air and snatches the light--a shard of ice two feet long sharp as a knitting needle--and he throws it. It becomes a flash of light again, and you see the Jotun on top of the wall a moment before he falls from it, spinning. 

 

You scream, instinctively, as he crashes at Loki’s feet, blue blood rubbing from his temple. Loki bends and grips his arm, and demands, “Who commanded you?”

 

His eyes blink, and then he smiles at Loki and says loudly and clearly, “For the rightful prince,” and drapes limp in the snow. 

 


	5. In Which Fear, Magic, Your Stomach, and Life Stir Within You

When someone had attempted to assassinate your father, the effects were multitudinous: shouting, stinging little magical punishments of his servants and his daughter for not panicking about him enough, twenty-two people imprisoned, nine people executed, a castle burned down, and the outlawing of nutmeg. 

 

Loki does nothing, as far as you know, and though you would not have wanted him to act like your father did, you fear that he is not being careful enough. 

 

You fear this through two quiet weeks, in which your belongings arrive from Alfheim, as does a new maid, Isa, a laconic but sweet, almost-elderly Frost Elf; in which you discover that you can endure the cold out of your room for long enough to attend banquets and to greet foreign ambassadors, but not long enough to do both in a row; in which you develop a routine of walking through every public room of the castle, into the courtyard, and then back again for exercise; in which you begin carving a new bust of Loki. 

 

You fear it even more after you find Helblindi standing still in the courtyard, staring up at the snow falling from the sky, breaking an icicle into fragments. Despite your fear that he told the almost-assassin to kill Loki, you walk closer to him and ask gently, “What troubles you, Helblindi?”

 

His red eyes become round and alarmed. “I cannot tell you. My father was angry that the assassin did not kill him.”

 

You take a deep breath and try to think about more believable perils.  “He was angry? Did he tell you about it before it happened?”

 

Helblindi nods, throwing the icicle a few dozen yards away. It flashes through the air like the shard the assassin threw at Loki. “And I could not find my brother to warn him.” He turns and walks away, as if you were done talking to him.

 

You stand where you are, thinking intently. You do not believe that Laufey’s ghost is in Jotunheim, so either the assassin, or someone else, told Helblindi what he meant to do--or Helblindi told the assassin to do it. 

 

Snow is beginning to drift on your fur-covered shoulders and your hair, and dot your skirt. You walk slowly to your room and brood over this strange clue, hoping Loki returns from his visit to the realms’ stone quarries soon so you can tell him about it. 

 

Midnight, and he still hasn’t come. You are tired from worrying and pacing, but you don’t want to fall asleep, so you sit on the floor in front of the fire, legs crossed, and try to keep your eyes open, staring at the magic flames and fidgeting a little. Where is he? Lost? Not likely. Hurt? Dead? You know you shouldn’t be panicking, but you are. You keep imagining scenarios in which Loki didn’t see the flying ice, or saw but didn’t catch it, but after one or two o’clock, even panic drowses. 

 

The green carpet is fibrous under your face.

 

You cease to be conscious of it, and of the heat of the fire, and then are again, as Loki runs his fingers through your hair. Your eyes blink open, and you see him kneeling beside you, looking down at you with a rueful smile. “I really should have told you.”

 

“Told me what?” you say, sleepiness and worry cross-crossing, and then, before he can answer, your thoughts become clear again and you sit up suddenly. “I was talking to Helblindi and I think he know who attacked you. He said that Laufey told him, but that isn’t possible, so somebody else must have told him or he told them--” You realize you are spilling out words almost too fast for Loki to know what you are saying, and you force yourself to speak more quietly and calmly. “He says he wanted to warn you.”

 

Loki listened quietly, without any unease. “I know,” he says. The corner of his mouth quirks up. “I have had a spell cast upon him since before that attempt which relays all of his conversations to me.”

 

“Oh,” you say. You hadn’t even known that such a spell could be cast. You feel fuzz on your fingers and look down to see that you have been picking strands of green out of the carpet. You stop and flick it off your fingertips, and look up at him. “Then--did you know someone was going to try to kill you?”

 

Loki laughs. “Yes, dearest. I took you to visit a temple before we even should have been awake, specifically so I could be almost murdered.” He shakes his head and speaks more seriously, brow furrowing. “No, I did not know. Either Helblindi had no such conversation as he described to you, or one of the parties in the conversation used magic to keep it hidden from my spell--remarkably powerful magic, which indicates that Heblindi was not that party.”   

 

“I don’t think he wants to hurt you, but I’m afraid he will,” you say quietly, and wincing at the thought, ask, “Are you certain you should not confine him, Loki? Not cruelly, of course, but he is dangerous to you, he can’t just be roaming around--”

 

“Because his mind torments him, I should lock him away? Because his words are mad, I should ensure that they are whimpered in a dungeon?” He is not shouting, but his voice is sharper than he has ever let it be when talking to you, and there is disappointment in his eyes that you do not quite understand. Quickly, he rises to his feet and walks away from you and the fire, every crisp step and snapping flutter of his cloak showing an annoyance that mystifies you.

 

“I didn’t say you should put him in a dungeon!” you protest, a lump rising in your throat. “I’m just afraid that he’ll hurt you, or kill you….” Oh. You’re plucking green strands up from the carpet again. You brush it off on your skirt and look up at Loki silently, waiting for him to say he understands, or at least to explain why his lips are pressed together and his hands attacking each other and why the room seems too small for his pacing.

 

“As long as he is free, any who desire to overthrow me are likely to communicate with him and thus reveal their plans to me.” His tone is cold and factual, but he looks at you and his expression becomes gentler. “And he is my brother, and I...remember incarceration.” He walks toward you and bends to help you to your feet, and when you have risen looks at you with compunction. “But I should not have spoken to you as I did.”

 

You nod, accepting the apology. “Please be careful, my love.”

 

Lopsidedly and beautifully, he smiles.  “Yes, of course,” he assures, not seriously enough. 

 

You sigh and wrap your arms around him and bury your face against his shoulder, and he kisses your temple, gently, before picking you up and carrying you to bed. 

 

You wake before Loki does that morning, perhaps because of that unexpected nap, and smile at how he looks--face calm, lips parted, body relaxed; hair riotously curling and trailing off the edge of the bed in a way that mirrors the arm that is off the bed too and looks as if he is gesturing intensely at the green carpet. Too softly to wake him, you nestle close beside him and let your palm rest on his chest, feeling his gentle breaths and the hardness of his scar.

 

Loki sits upright so abruptly that you gasp. He hesitates, one brow rising, and asks, “A rather uncomfortable question, my love, but  _ why  _ you are suddenly full of dark magic?” 

 

You blink. What?! “I’m not a magician.”

 

Loki stares at you as if you are a manuscript with excessively tiny print prophesying the apocalypse. “I know. Do you feel unwell?”

 

“No.” 

 

That is true.

 

It is not true one morning several weeks later, nor is it true the morning after that, or after that. 

 

“Is it a curse?” you ask, the morning when smelling the almost scentless fire makes you feel as if your stomach wants to go for a morning walk without you.

 

Loki shakes his head, and suddenly smiles, eyes fixed on the fire. It turns yellow and then green. “Well, if it takes after me, it will cry from midnight to four in the morning every night until it’s two.”  


	6. In Which There is Relative Peril

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter, sorry--I'm about to go on a road trip!

You are speechless. A baby! You’ve daydreamed and night-dreamed about having one with your husband (though you feared it when your marriage was secret): a sweet baby, tiny and innocent and needing held--and yes, making a tremendous mess as often as possible and drooling on you. You are not unrealistic. 

 

And now a baby is growing in you--very tiny, not ready to be held, but real, not a dream. An inarticulate, quiet sound that you prefer not to call a squeak comes from your mouth, overwhelmed excitement, and Loki puts his arms around you and kisses you, pulse speeding in his lips. 

 

After the kiss ends, you rest against him, out of breath and smiling. He lightly touches your stomach, though it still looks like it did before you were carrying a child, at least through your gown, and then puts his palm flat against it and is quiet. You turn your head and kiss his collarbone. “I wonder how long it would have taken me to realize it,” you say with a quiet laugh, head tipped back to look up at him. “Though at least I didn’t mistake our baby for a curse!” 

 

Loki’s brow creases, and there is a long silence before he says, “Embarrassing as that would be, I wish I had.” His arm tightens around you. “You have both dark magic  _ and _ a child in you, my love.” 

 

“Oh,” you say, your voice scarcely audible.  “That….”

 

“They do not coexist well,” Loki understated, caressing your shoulder. His cool fingers slide down your arm. “But I will continue to study this magic--which has harmed neither of you, so far--and I will protect you from it and its caster.” His eyes and voice are serious and confident; equally serious, voice more confident than eyes. “Do you believe that, my heart?” 

 

“Yes,” you say softly. You do. “I am frightened, but I trust you.” 

 

He nods slightly, and swallows hard; and then he smiles at you as if he is certain this will have a happy ending, and you smile back at him and nestle into his arms, trying to think about the baby and not about the dark magic that you cannot feel or see.“We need to think of names,” you say after a few moments.

 

You feel Loki laugh. “I dare say we’ll manage that, with….nine, but two must have already passed--” He pauses his thinking aloud, and then realizes: “No, Jotun women are with child for a year--”

 

Your mouth quirks into a smile. “And Elf women for four months.” 

 

Loki takes in a long breath. “Evidently our child will make a surprise entrance,” he says, and despite this being yet another frightening thing, you both laugh.

 

You keep wanting to laugh about his phrasing a few hours later, when you are sitting in a throne beside his as he hears petitions. But you keep a straight face, and have plans to hide your mouth with your vast fur wrap if you have to. 

 

The Jotun who bows to Loki now is old, very old; he has no white beard or hair, of course, but his face is so wrinkled that it looks patternless, and his red eyes are deep in his head. He straightens up, gradually, so gradually that you think of three possible names for the baby before he is upright, and opens his toothless mouth. “Loki, son of Laufey, king of Jotunheim….”

 

Jotuns walk into the throneroom, four abreast. What are they doing? Loki leans forward, the hand that lies on his lap  curving in a prepared, angular way. 

 

“By usurpation!” shouts the old man, unexpectedly deafening. “Son of Laufey unlawfully!” 

 

Loki stands and steps sideways, in front of you, and then events are a blur. The Jotuns coming in move faster and fill the room and are a mass that opens in the middle to show one standing alone: Helblindi. Eyes fixed above Loki’s head and spears of ice jutting from his tremoring hands. 

 

You spring to your feet, which makes your stomach twist, as the old man’s hands fly up into the air and white-blue magic jags dazzlingly between them and snaps through the air. Loki flings green light at it as the Jotuns charge forward, and then--the loudest noise you have ever heard, a sound like thousands of cooks pouring water into thousands of pans of boiling oil, and light--not blended blue and green, but blue and green locked in combat, flashes across the room, dark and then light and then out and then glaring. 

 

When the room is dim and still again, the Jotuns a few feet from Loki are immobile, blinking, unsure what to do. 

 

Loki takes a step towards them. “I could kill a dozen of you in battle, easily,” he comments. “Twenty, if I were desperate.” There are fifty in the room; including the throneroom guards, who are standing shoulder-to shoulder with the attackers. “You will accept my terms for surrender.” 

 

“What?” Helblindi blurts. He clears his throat, still not looking at Loki. “There are  _ fifty _ \--”

 

“I will surrender, and you will grant my wife safe passage to Alfheim.” 

 

You draw in your breath, and open your mouth to protest. You’d rather be imprisoned with him than separated again! But there is a baby inside you, and you must protect it, so you close your mouth and simply step closer to him. He puts his arm around you and bends to kiss your cheek. “Bifrost,” he whispers, and stands upright, brows and mouth as straight and calm as his stance. 

 

“I accept,” Helblindi says, and two crowds rush forward, separating you and Loki and then the crowds turn and you turn and all pour out of the throneroom and you can’t see Loki, and you stop and try to see him but you can’t see him and someone pulls you off your feet and drags you through the doors and throws you far into the snow.

 

Quiet. 

 

When you stand up, the snow is up to your shoulders and trickling down the neck of your gown. You pull your snowy fur around you, wrapping up your stomach, and try to ignore the fact that you are crying, and try not to think about how possible it is that…. No. Loki said “Bifrost.” 

 

He’s told you about it, and about how to summon it. 

The sky drops snow in your eyes and you blink as you take a deep breath, hands shaking from cold and worry. “Heimdall!” You shout as loudly as you can. It sounds quiet, with so much space and snow around you. “Lower the Bifrost!” 

 

Light, brighter than the dueling magic a few minutes ago, more white and yet more colorful than snow in sunlight, falls out of the sky and flies up again with you , a speeding so bright and so fast that you have scarcely put your hand on your stomach to guard the baby before the light shoves you at green grass and vanishes.

 

You are staring at a tall man with bristly hair and eyes that are different colors. His muscles are as massive as his glowing battleaxe; his armor is sleeveless. And he is smiling amiably at you. 

 

“You aren’t Heimdall,” comes out of your mouth, and the smile vanishes.

 

“Heimdall is dead,” he states, and you notice the scars touching his brown eye. “Did you know him?” 

 

“No. Where can I find Thor?”   


 

“I’m Thor.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	7. In Which Your Husband is Not Your Husband

“I’m your brother’s wife, there’s been a coup,” you spill out, and immediately he seems to grow broader-shouldered and his hand tightens around his axe’s handle. 

 

“Loki?” 

You blink, taken aback. “Yes--you have no other brothers!”

 

Thor offers you his arm and raises the axe like a flagstaff. “Not yet.” Before you have time to ponder why a man whose parents, you have learned, are both dead would say that, the same roaring magnificence of light radiates around you both and fires off with you. You catch hold of Thor’s gigantic arm and close your eyes, stomach feeling as if it is flying faster than you are. 

 

Your feet hit something soli. The light glowing through your eyelids fades, and cold air surrounds you. You open your eyes, releasing Thor’s arm, and see an utterly empty throneroom.

 

“Where is he?” Thor asks.

 

You shake your head, thinking quickly but without coming up with any noteworthy answer. “The dungeon?” you say hesitantly. Thor strides toward the doorway and you follow him, involuntarily shivering. 

 

Green light flashes from the floor the moment Thor steps out of the throneroom. Runes are glowing there: TEMPLE.

 

“That’s Loki’s magic. A temple--do you know where it is?” Thor asks, lifting his axe. 

 

“About half a mile north. It’s a circle, like a stone crown--” Your voice breaks off as the light sweeps you off the floor and encompasses you and vanishes, leaving you and Thor standing in the snow a few yards away from the temple. Voices faintly rumble from it.

 

“Stay here,” Thor orders you, and runs toward the archway, feet punching deep into the snow. You hurry after him, stumbling in the deep now--deeper today than when Loki brought you here. Is he safe? Alive?

 

The voices are clearer. The old man is speaking, high-pitched and loud, unnaturally loud. “He never wielded it! He deceived us, made illusions, but this realm is not renovated! The Casket is inert, awaiting the rightful king, Helblindi Laufeyson! Lift it up, son of Laufey! Prove your right to the--” 

 

The vanishes through the archway and the old man’s voice breaks off.

 

Snow scratches at your legs and your feet are numb, but you move faster as you hear Thor shout and hear people yell and shriek. You stumble through the archway just in time to see, all in half a second, Thor’s axe flying towards Helblindi, who stands holding the Casket in both hands with Loki bound and gagged and kneeling on the altar and the old man whirling towards Thor with his upraised arms falling and a knife in his hand and crowds of people yelling and running towards Thor--

 

Helblindi, so fast that you cannot even see him do it, sets the Casket down on its pedestal and catches the axe by the handle. Everyone freezes and looks at him; all is silent and unmoving for an instant. Lime-green light ebbs off him, and Loki is standing with one hand on the Casket and the axe in his other hand, and a lopsided grin on his face.

 

The axe flies back to Thor as the illusion of Loki dissipates from the kneeling man on the altar. Helblindi kneels there, stiff and shaking and staring up at Loki, who sweeps up the Casket again.

 

Blinding blue light.

 

It shines out all around Loki, a bright quiet storm of which he is the eyes, and those running toward him stop as ice grows around them and blasts out behind them.

 

Silence. Loki stands surrounded by a half-circle of frozen Jotuns, face emotionless. He twists his hands and slices through the air in front of him, and the casket vanishes. 

 

Loki makes his way through the maze of ice-enclosed enemies, reaching up to brush curls out of his eyes. There is a vast bruise on his cheek.  You and Thor both remember how to move, and Thor strides forwards and puts his hand on Loki’s shoulder. “You didn’t leave any for me to fight!” 

 

The corner of Loki’s mouth tilts up. “I needed an audience,” he says, in a tone that indicates that is obvious. He turns to you. “Are you unhurt, my love?”  

 

“Yes,” you say, teeth chattering.

 

Loki frowns. “You need to return to--”

 

A sound like hundreds of vases shattering and a blaze of blue light almost as bright as the Casket.   

You barely have time to turn, Thor barely has time to throw his arm up to protect his eyes, before both of you are immobilized. You cannot blink; you cannot even shiver, though the cold is greater and greater at every moment. 

 

Loki stands between you, equally immobile, as the old man slowly walks toward the three of you, eyes and hands shining like the Casket itself. 

 

““I am the Wise One who left you to die, a rightful sacrifice to the Ancient Winters”  he says softly, eyes on Loki. He raises a shaking hand, blue and glowing brighter blue, and Loki falls on his face and skids through the snow, unnaturally--flips up in the air and crashed down on the altar on his back, arms spread. Helblindi falls off the edge of the altar. You strain to move, to move, to move--nothing. You cannot even gasp as the old map bends over Loki, a long, delicate ice dagger crystalizing from his palm. 

 

Loki’s fingers twitch, just a flicker of green light around his hand.

 

“You were begotten and born to be sacrificed.” The Wise One lifts the knife exaggeratedly, back arched, hand above his head. “Your birthright is--”

 

“To die?” Loki asks pleasantly, and the Wise One starts, bewilderment filling his face, before Loki’s hand shoots up toward his chest and shoves an icicle into his heart. He arches backward and falls flat at the foot of the altar, and you can move again. You run so fast that you don’t remember running, throwing your arms around Loki as he steps off the altar. Tears fill your eyes

 

Loki puts his arms around you for a moment, as tightly as if he were trying to keep you from pulling away, and then lets go of you. “I must deal with them,” he says softly. His face is hard--if you did not love him, you would think it was cruel. “Take Thor where it is warm, and remain there. I will join you.” 

 

You obey, or try to. Thor is standing unnaturally still where he was bound, though his hands are moving a little, gripping his axe handle so tightly that the knuckles are white, and then tighter. “Thor,” you say. You are shivering so much that it is difficult to enunciate. “Thor, we need to go inside. It’s too cold.” 

 

“No,” Thor says flatly. Presumably to going inside. He can’t possibly think it isn’t too cold. 

 

“Loki says we need to go.” Thor ignores you. He is watching Loki step up on the altar and gracefully lay one hand on the casket. 

 

Loki splays the fingers of his other hand and the ice shatters off of every Jotun. They gasp for breath and some almost fall, and Loki stares at them, looking crueler than the cold. “The Ancient Winters obey me, and so shall you.” They look at him, heads turning and tipping up.“Kneel.”

 

One drops to his knees, and then another, and then they are all kneeling, looking up at him, and the Wise One’s blue blood in soaking into the snow….

 

You hug yourself, barely hearing the words of the curse Loki is casting on the kneeling Jotuns, a curse that will come upon them if they betray their oaths of allegiance again, and wonder if your baby can feel you shiver, if it is cold too. 

 

The crowd begins to leave. Some walk past you on your right, others on your left, and soon only the four of you are in the temple: Loki, a little tireder than he was; Thor, standing like an immense statue; Helblindi, kneeling and slumped beside the altar, now and then looking up at Loki and then down at the snow again; and you.

 

Loki steps off the altar and bends to untie Helblindi’s gag. “Come,” he orders her, and Helblindi rises to his feet, hands bound behind his back, and trails Loki as the latter walks quickly toward you. Loki lifts  you into his arms and pulls his cape forward and over you. You nestle against his chest, shivering. “You should have taken her inside,” he reproaches Thor. 

 

Thor is silent, still staring at the altar. 

 

“Thor?” Loki asks, and you feel him sigh. He takes a step nearer to Thor, and says softly, “Brother. Take us to the palace.”

 

Thor stabs his axe into the air and brings the Bifrost. 

**Author's Note:**

> I used the Marvel Database (http://marvel.wikia.com) and the Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki (http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com)for reference.


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